
"Ironically, although Mayer had, perhaps, the most famous name in Madison, many local residents didn't even know he was a real person," the newspaper said. "The company long used a midget, 'Little Oscar,' as its spokesman and the real Oscar Mayer, a tall, dignified and courtly man, rarely sought publicity."
The business was founded by his grandfather, Oscar F. Mayer, a Bavarian immigrant who started his career in 1873 at the age of 14 as a "butcher's boy" in a Detroit meat market. Ten years later Oscar, along with his brothers Gottfried and Max, opened a meat market, according to the Kraft web site. It was one of the first companies to volunteer to join the then-new federal meat inspection program. Oscar F. Mayer died in 1955 and Mayer's father, Oscar G. Mayer Sr., died in 1965.